The present invention relates to a system and method for rapid translation of data to and from the wireless application protocol (WAP) format, and in particular, for a system and method which enable real-time, xe2x80x9con the flyxe2x80x9d translation through managing two separate, asynchronous sessions which are opened for communication both according to WAP and according to the current network protocols.
Cellular telephones are becoming increasingly popular for portable telephone use, particularly for users who are interested in rapid, mobile communication. As the amount of computational power and memory space which are available in such small, portable electronic devices increase, a demand has arisen for different types of communication services through such devices. In particular, users have demanded that cellular telephones receive many different types of multimedia data, including e-mail (electronic mail) messages and Web pages.
In response to such demands, and to extend the power and efficacy of operation of portable, wireless electronic communication devices, the WAP (wireless application protocol) standard has been developed. WAP is now the standard for the presentation and delivery of wireless data, including multimedia and other information, and telephony services, on mobile telephones and other types of wireless communication devices. WAP is designed to efficiently provide both multimedia and telephony services to such wireless communication devices, given the limitations of wireless networks and of the electronic devices themselves.
Wireless communication devices have requirements and drawbacks which are different than cable-linked electronic devices. For example, wireless networks are frequency significantly less stable than cable networks. Since users with such portable communication devices often operate these devices at different locations, the wireless network connection may not always be available, and may even suddenly become unavailable during a single communication session. In addition, the wireless communication devices themselves are more limited in terns of available resources than desktop computers. For example, such wireless communication devices typically have a less powerful CPU (central processing unit), less memory, a lower amount of available power since these devises are often battery-operated, and smaller display screens. Thus, wireless communication devices require adaptations of existing software and data transmission protocols in order to effectively deliver multimedia content from the Internet.
WAP provides the required adaptations and modifications to such software and data transmission protocols in order to meet the requirements of wireless communication devices. For example, HTML (Hyper-text Mark-up Language) has been adapted to form WML (Wireless Mark-up Language). As explained in greater detail below, other adaptations and modifications have also been made, such that wireless communication devices require a translation system, or gateway, in order to communicate with computational devices being operated according to the current network protocols.
Background art FIG.1 is a schematic block diagram of currently available systems for providing connectivity between wireless communication devices operating according to WAP and computational devices being operated according to the current network protocols. A translation system 10 has a wireless communication device client 12, operating a WAP-compatible software agent 14. Requests are sent from wireless communication device client 12 to a proxy server 16. Proxy server 16 must receive an entire WAP-compatible request before translating into an original network protocol request, for example by translating WAP protocol instructions to HTTP and TCP/IP instructions. The translated request is then passed to an original server 18, which operates such software as CGI scripts 20 and which provides content 22.
The same process must also be followed in reverse when original server 18 serves the requested content. Proxy server 16 must receive the entirety of the requested content from original server 18 before translating the requested content into a WAP-compatible format. The translated content is then served to wireless communication device client 12 by proxy server 16.
In addition, proxy server 16 can only translate the data at the highest (application) level of the wireless or wired network protocols, which significantly decreases the efficiency of the translation process. The data must therefore be converted through all of the network layers before translation, and must then be reconverted to a format which is suitable for transmission through the physical network media, whether wired (cables) or wireless.
Clearly, background art system 10 has serious, significant disadvantages. First, two separate sessions are operated with significant delays in each session for the translation process, as proxy server 16 waits for the translation process to be completed for each of original server 18 and wireless communication device client 12 before the translated data can be passed to the other session. Thus, since proxy server 16 must translate the entirety of the received information before passing it to the recipient, the translation process introduces significant delays. Background art system 10 is clearly inefficient and time consuming.
A more useful solution would be able to pass translated information as soon as only a portion is translated, such that the waiting period is significantly reduced. Furthermore, such a solution would allow a simple translating device, thereby decreasing the complexity of the gateway. Unfortunately, such a solution is not currently available.
There is thus a need for, and it would be useful to have, a system and a method for rapidly translating data being transmitted according to WAP into known network protocol data, without requiring the operation of two separate, simultaneous sessions, and without waiting for the entirety of the data before beginning the process of translating the data, such that the data is efficiently translated to and from a WAP-compatible format in real-time, without delays.